Dean Spears is the Executive Director of the RICE Institute. Dean’s research focuses on children’s health and human capital, which this day often means height, sanitation, and social forces in Indian households and villages. He has also done research about population issues in social welfare and about decision-making, in particular decision-making by poor people and the social psychology of interaction between richer and poorer people. Dean has worked in El Salvador, India, and South Africa. His is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma and has an MA in International Studies from the University of Oklahoma. He has an MPA in Development Studies and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University. He is currently a visiting economist at the Economic and Planning Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.

The Brown-Harvard-MIT Joint Seminar on South Asian Politics approaches some of the big questions of politics, political economy and security, on which the South Asian region in general, and India in particular, offers engaging perspectives.